


Crossroads

by IndelibleEvidence



Series: Damaged Goods [2]
Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Sex, Damaged Goods, F/M, Reller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-01 07:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17862899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndelibleEvidence/pseuds/IndelibleEvidence
Summary: Sequel to Strikethrough. It's been ten months since Remi disappeared with the cure for ZIP poisoning, but Kurt refuses to give up. When he runs into Remi in Venice, he's determined to bring back more of her memories of Jane's life, no matter how much she's determined to shut him out. Canon divergent from 4x07 onwards. Remi Briggs/Kurt Weller - Reller





	1. Isolated

**Author's Note:**

> It's best to read Strikethrough before you start this one, as it's set ten months after the events of that fic. I have recounted the main plot points in this chapter, but there might be some things that still don't make sense if you haven't read that one.
> 
> Changes to canon: Eve didn't die at the end of 4x07, Remi didn't break Shepherd free of the black site, there was no procedure to bring back Jane's memories on Roman's drives, Remi stole the cure from Dr. Roga and went on the run after killing Eve and sleeping with Kurt. So there are some changes between 4x07 and 4x10, and anything after 4x10 didn't happen. Also, Avery doesn't exist in this fic, because it's easier that way. :)

“I missed you so much.”

Remi smiled and snuggled deeper into Kurt’s embrace. His strong arms held her tightly, and though they were only just done having sex, desire rose within her again as he kissed the side of her neck.

“I haven’t felt right, the whole time you’ve been gone.”

 _Me either,_ she wanted to say. _I kept thinking I saw you, but you were never there. Now that you’re here, I don’t ever want to let you go._

The words wouldn’t leave her lips. Instead, she tilted her head to give him a kiss that said everything that she couldn’t—sweet and affectionate, with just an edge of heat.

He looked down at her with hope and pain in his expression. “Don’t leave me again, Jane. Please.”

“Never,” Jane replied, as Remi gazed up into his loving expression with a growing sense of dismay. “Being without you for so long was more than I could stand. I love you too much to go through that again.”

“I love you, too.”

They moved together again, their smiles fading to need as their kiss deepened…and Remi snapped back to awareness, kicking the bed sheets from her overheated body with a whispered curse.

_Damn you, Jane._

For a few moments she lay there, savouring the bittersweet memory of Kurt’s loving embrace. Then, unable to bear harsh reality anymore, she got out of bed and dragged herself into the bathroom, to wash away the impact of the memory-dream that had snagged her in its clutches.

Kurt Weller would never look at Remi the way he looked at his precious Jane Doe. And Remi didn’t want him to, not when she was herself. But when she got back a memory of being Jane, she didn’t just get sight, sound and sometimes other senses. She got Jane’s emotions, too. Emotions that made her crave Weller’s touch, his smile, the way his gaze softened when he looked at her.

At _Jane._ He would never look at Remi that way, not now that he knew she was the one in control again.

Remi scowled at herself in the bathroom mirror as she waited for the shower temperature to adjust. _Yup, still me. I may not have anybody in this whole damn world, but at least I’m in my right mind again._

She stepped under the spray and soaked her shoulder-length hair. In the ten months since she’d left New York behind, it had grown from Jane’s usual messy bob into something that felt more like her old self. She’d keep growing it for a while; she was sick of looking in the mirror and seeing Weller’s wife.

_Oscar. It’s you I miss, not him._

She envisioned her ex-fiancé in her mind—handsome, quietly confident, deadly and tenacious. Grief and loneliness swelled in her chest, and she rested her palms against the shower tiles, her head bowed under the water.

On the heels of her grief came blinding anger. Jane had killed the only man Remi had ever truly loved. Remi didn’t even remember it; her only proof that it had happened at all was in Jane’s statement to the FBI, where she’d said she’d tried to bring Oscar in. He’d refused to go—of course—and Jane had killed him for it.

Everyone she cared about was either dead or locked up because of that bitch—in black sites she had no chance of finding now that the FBI knew she’d had a list of the old locations. The CIA would have switched everything up, leaving nothing to chance, and if there was a way to find out where the new black sites were, Remi didn’t know it.

She was alone. And it was Jane Doe’s fault. Jane’s, and her team’s. Including Weller.

Now that she was no longer dying of ZIP poisoning—and with no way to confront Shepherd about whether she’d known it would be fatal before allowing her adoptive daughter to be dosed—Remi’s life stretched ahead of her, and she had no idea what to do with it. She’d toyed with the idea of starting a new organisation from scratch, exacting her revenge on Jane’s friends and finding a way to locate and free Shepherd. But if she eventually went down that path, it would need to be later, after the dust had settled. Once they’d stopped expecting it.

She’d used the remaining bank robbery money she’d stashed away to fly to Europe—Serbia, to be precise. There weren’t many European countries that didn’t extradite wanted criminals to the States, but Serbia didn’t have an extradition treaty, so it was a safe place to plan her next move. She’d spent her days exploring the cities, historical sites and monasteries of the region, and her nights studying the Serbian language, needing something to occupy her thoughts. Since she already had a good grasp of Bulgarian, it wasn’t too difficult to come to terms with the new tongue, and soon she was easily able to converse with the locals.

Not that the conversations had really been anything more than small talk. Now, more than ever, Remi was keenly aware of how alone she was. Without Oscar, Roman, Shepherd…who really knew her?

She’d forged bonds with her Orion team members, but now she was the only one left. Nigel and Chris Thornton had become friends, but now Chris was dead, along with hundreds of other innocent civilians in Afghanistan’s destroyed towns and cities, and she’d introduced Nigel to Shepherd, sealing his fate.

She’d made friends—more like friendly acquaintances— amongst Shepherd’s ranks back home, but none were left. She’d watched the last free member of their movement, Dolan Osmond, die as a result of a car wreck. She’d pulled him back in when she’d returned to her own mind, and he’d died within two days.

Remi had to admit it to herself. She was so lonely, it was like a physical ache. Even her hallucination of Roman had disappeared, now that she was no longer dying. When was the last time she’d been touched, other than a slight brush of fingers as she took purchases from or handed money to shopkeepers?

_Kurt._

Remi groaned, resisting the urge to beat her head against the shower cubicle wall. _Everything comes back to that bastard. Everything._

The last time she’d touched someone for more than a split-second, she’d been stroking Kurt’s face as the sedative she’d injected him with pulled him under. He’d looked at her with such fear, convinced that if she fled from him, she’d have no way to get the cure for ZIP poisoning. He’d been terrified she’d die.

 _That_ Jane _would die. He doesn’t give a damn about me. If he didn’t think I was holding his precious wife’s body hostage, he’d shoot me without a second thought. The only reason he came to help me that day was because he didn’t want my wounds to get infected._

Remi swallowed the pain and tried to think of something else, but now she was on the track of reliving that day, she couldn’t stop until she’d gone through all of it. The way he’d gently cleaned, stitched and dressed the injury between her shoulder blades, his careful touch sending unwanted ripples of lust through her skin. He’d sensed her desire, but had only commented on it once as he’d worked, keeping his distance.

While she’d been passed out with a ZIP-induced migraine on the cabin safehouse’s couch, Kurt had put a plan of his own into motion. Not only had he told Patterson to get the CIA to move Shepherd to a different safehouse—screwing up Remi’s plan before she’d had a chance to implement it—but he’d also decided Eve needed to be dealt with. When Remi had woken to find that he’d asked Patterson to broadcast the safehouse’s location to the underground banker and her mercenary team, Remi had nearly screamed with frustration.

They’d prepared for an ambush, their anger and sexual tension rising with each minute that passed. After the threat was neutralised, riding high on the residues of combat adrenaline, Remi had shoved Kurt back against the wall and kissed him, desperate to release some of the pent-up emotion within her.

After yet another argument, she’d goaded him into rough, heated, furious sex that had left them both gasping and clinging to each other, overwhelmed in the aftermath of their passion. Just remembering the way he’d touched and tasted her turned Remi on. He’d known it was her, not Jane, and he’d fucked her anyway, ordering her to look at him, laughing at her assertion that she hated him.

_“This isn’t hate, Remi.”_

She’d come harder than she ever had in her life. But that was only because he knew her body from years of fucking Jane. Her body’s responses had already been sensitised to him. It had nothing to do with how Remi felt about him.

It had been a stupid mistake to be that vulnerable with him. One she would never make again. Ever.

Growling under her breath, she abruptly turned the temperature dial for the shower, then gasped as the freezing torrent of water shocked the breath from her. _Fuck you, Kurt Weller. I’m done fantasising about you. You were a means to an end. You’re nothing to me._

After her shower, she towelled off, then blasted her hair with hot air from the dryer, avoiding looking at her own reflection. She’d admired her tattoos before the ZIP was administered, thinking they’d be a reminder of her triumph when she came through the other side of the mission, and was welcomed back into the fold. Now, they just reminded her of her failure. Of Jane falling in love with the agent she was supposed to be double-crossing. She had been so weak.

Crawling back into bed, Remi curled into a ball on her side, her arms wrapped around her own waist to try to ease the steady ache of loneliness that ate at her.

Tomorrow, she’d move on again. Right now, she was in Madrid, Spain. From Serbia, after the first month, she’d ventured into more wealthy European countries, vaguely remembering Jane had spent some time in France, Spain and Germany, working kidnap and ransom jobs under the radar as she hid from bounty hunters. Remi had made some connections and pulled in a decent amount of cash, always working alone, not trusting anyone or sharing her pay.

Something had been bugging her for the past week, though. _July tenth, July tenth, July tenth…_ She had no idea why the date kept repeating in her mind, along with a memory of Piazza San Marco—St. Mark’s Square, in Venice, Italy.

It had to be something related to Jane’s memories. Even knowing that it linked to a time in her past when she’d been someone she hated, Remi was too curious to let the date pass by without visiting Venice. She’d always loved it there, and had dragged Roman and Oscar along on separate occasions, back before everything had gone so wrong.

She’d have to be careful. If it really was a date important to Jane, Weller might be there, hoping she might remember and show up. If so, Remi couldn’t let him see her.

Last time she’d spoken to him, when she’d called his apartment once she’d been cured of the ZIP poisoning, Kurt had told her he’d find her and get his wife back—as if that were even possible. Even so, Remi couldn’t let him back into her head. Jane was gone, and she was here to stay, whether he liked it or not.


	2. Hear Me Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise Kurt isn't an alcoholic now! He's only carrying a hip flask with him because he has a specific drinking binge planned on that one day. I do plan to have Remi bring it up in an argument in the next chapter, but it's not clear in this one, so I thought I'd make sure no one makes the wrong assumption.

St. Mark’s Square hadn’t changed much since Kurt’s last visit. Tourists milled around the large, open space, staring up at the beautiful architecture and soaking in the ambiance and history of Venice, Italy. Every now and then, a lovestruck couple would wander past his vantage point, and Kurt’s throat would tighten.

_Jane. I miss you so much._

If the situation hadn’t been so heart-breaking, he might have found it funny. When he’d first realised Jane had gone into hiding from bounty hunters, over three years ago now, he’d stood in this exact same spot, hoping to catch a glimpse of her familiar figure amongst the crowd. Now, here he was again. He’d taken the same room in the same hotel they’d checked into when they’d first visited together, hours before he’d gone down on one knee before her and asked her to be his wife.

Jane hadn’t been here when he’d searched for her three years ago, and Remi wasn’t here now. It had been a vain hope. Remi had dropped completely off the radar since she’d left the States at the end of September last year. Unlike the last time she’d disappeared, she’d vanished without a trace. When Jane had been in hiding, she’d surface for just long enough for the bounty hunters to find her, subdue whichever assassin found her first, then try to get information from her would-be killers to aid her in her task of finding the bounty contract’s holder. It had never worked—right up until Roman had found the guy, after Jane had been on the run for eighteen months.

And for that whole time, on each occasion that Jane became traceable, Patterson or Keaton would let Kurt know. He’d get on a plane, hoping against hope that he could track her down before she vanished again, heedless of the expense or his own fatigue.

Roman was six feet under now, and Remi, unlike Jane, had no interest in becoming traceable. She’d left the country with a fake passport and flown to the Ukraine, though Kurt found it unlikely she’d actually stayed there, since he’d been able to trace her that far. With the whole of mainland Europe and Asia to hide in, she’d gone to ground very efficiently. He suspected she must have been covering most of her tattoos, as well—simple enough in the cold of winter, but likely more difficult in the summer months.

The worst thing was that Remi’s past, pre-ZIP, had been mostly a blank page. Apart from the languages Jane had been able to speak, and the fact that Remi had done at least one tour in Afghanistan, he’d had no idea where she might be able to hide, and with whom. He’d gone to Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa soon after she’d disappeared, though he’d known it was a vain hope to actually find her there. She was too smart to go back to her hometown. As for Afghanistan, it seemed reasonable to assume Remi would avoid it. The US military still had a presence there, and since Alice Kruger was presumed dead, her whole unit wiped out by the US government, she’d need to play it safe.

Since Remi didn’t remember much of Jane’s life, Kurt wasn’t expecting her to be here, in Venice. With no leads to follow, he’d had to accept that, short of closing his eyes and sticking a pin in a map, he didn’t have the first clue where to find her.

He was here for himself. To remember Jane, and to wallow in his grief.

Kurt unhooked the hip flask from his belt and unscrewed the top, gazing up at the bell tower where Roman had left the succinylcholine Jane had used to fake her death. A bittersweet smile crossed his face as he remembered how she’d determinedly plunged the syringe into her thigh through her jeans. He’d wanted to find another way—a safer way—to take down the guy who’d held Jane’s bounty, but she’d overruled him without a word, then pleaded with him to do it her way once he’d had little choice in the matter.

He’d been so pissed off at her that day, as he’d bundled her ‘dead’ body into a bag—Roman’s sense of humour left a lot to be desired—and slung it over his shoulder, transporting his precious cargo to the Abbey of Misericordia, where the fixer waited. The way she’d used the drug, with no regard for his wishes, had infuriated him, reminding him of the way she’d taken off without his input eighteen months earlier. But as the ninety minutes until she’d needed the antidote ticked by, with the fixer a no-show, he’d become more anxious than angry, then frantic when he’d almost been unable to get to her to revive her in time. But once they’d taken out the fixer and his security, working out their combined frustration on the men who’d taken eighteen months of their marriage from them, he’d left the building exhilarated, his wife safely at his side. If he hadn’t been so unsure about the status of their relationship at the time, he would have pulled her into his arms and kissed her right then.

Kurt took a gulp of the Scotch within his hip flask, then replaced the cap as the alcohol burned his throat. Funny how life had conspired to keep him apart from Jane. It was almost as though their relationship were cursed. First three months in a CIA black site had kept her from his side. Then he hadn’t wanted to spend any more time with her than necessary, their betrayals of each other’s trust keeping them apart for months. Then, only a couple of months into their marriage, the bounty on Jane’s head had ripped them apart again. The hunt for Roman and Crawford had driven yet more wedges between them, but they’d overcome it all, just in time for the ZIP poisoning to bring back Remi.

Maybe he and Jane just weren’t meant to be. Would this separation be even longer than when Jane had been on the run? Was he just fooling himself that she’d ever come back at all?

Kurt had just replaced the flask on his belt when he got the sense he was being watched. Suppressing a frown, he took a long, casual look at his surroundings, wondering if he was imagining things. But then his gaze snagged on a dark-haired woman diagonally across the square from him, and he froze, his cynical despondency blinking into hope.

_Jane._

Wearing a long-sleeved grey shirt despite the hot weather, her hair loose around her shoulders, his wife was staring straight at him, her expression stunned. Kurt hadn’t realised his lips had silently formed the syllables of her name until her guard flew up and her jaw clenched, leaving him with no doubt that this was still Remi, not Jane.

She took a small step back, as though planning to vanish into the stream of pedestrians behind her, but for some reason, she hesitated, her eyes still on him. That gave him enough time to cut across the corner of the square to approach her, his hands held up as though he were trying to pacify an unpredictable suspect, showing he was unarmed. “Don’t run, Remi, please. I just wanna talk.”

Maybe she took pity on him because of his obvious desperation, or maybe she just wanted a drink. Either way, she relaxed a little and gestured at the one of the many small tables that had just been vacated nearby. “You give me a hit of whatever you’re drinking, and I’ll hear you out.”

Kurt watched her carefully as they sat down. She didn’t appear to be injured; there was no stiffness to her movements, and she didn’t flinch. Handing over his hip flask, he said, “What brings you here?”

Remi sniffed the lip of the flask, then took a swallow of Scotch, staring over at the Doge’s Palace. She handed back the flask before she answered. “July tenth, apparently.”

Kurt tried to hide his smile, but it must have been unsuccessful, because she scowled. “I have no idea why I’m here other than that this place, on this day, is in my memory. I didn’t know why, and it was bugging me, so I came to find out. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Her memories were still coming back. _Thank god._

“Look at the spot where I was standing. It doesn’t bring anything back?”

Remi glanced back over her shoulder for a long moment, and he took the opportunity to drink in her features. She’d been taken aback to find him here, but not surprised enough that it was a total shock. She must have at least suspected this place was special to them, and that he might be here today. Yet she’d shown up anyway. That was a good sign.

Remi turned back to him, frustration in her eyes. “Nothing.”

Kurt gazed back at that spot. The sun had been about to set—it had only been slightly earlier in the day than it was right now—and Jane had been leaning against a pillar, standing up so she could see past the crowds, as she’d sketched the Doge’s Palace, the columns of St. Mark and St. Theodore, and the Biblioteca Marciana. Kurt had taken a short walk down the Grand Canal while she’d worked, and when he’d returned, she’d been so absorbed in her drawing that she hadn’t noticed his approach.

He’d had the idea that he’d propose during a gondola ride as the sun went down, but as he’d watched her from a few feet away, her hair curling against her jaw and her attention flicking critically between her subject and the sketch, he’d found himself taking the ring box from his pocket, overwhelmed with love.

“You were sketching the view, and I left you to it for a while. When I got back, you were focusing so hard that you didn’t notice me until I stopped right in front of you, got down on one knee and asked you to be my wife.”

For a split-second, something in Remi’s expression wavered, but before he could analyse it, it was gone. “Jane. You asked _Jane_ to be your wife.”

Kurt shrugged. “You’re the one who said you’re not that different.”

“And you’re the one who said we’re nothing alike,” Remi said sharply.

Kurt backed off for the moment, looking back out at the breathtaking architecture around them. Unsurprisingly, Jane still seemed to be a very touchy subject for Remi.

After a moment, she sighed. “I’m assuming Jane said yes, and that’s why I remember the date. You can spare me the details.” Her tone indicated that she was anything but thrilled by the reason she was here, and Kurt couldn’t help a twinge of annoyance at the dismissiveness in her tone.

“I’m surprised you remembered the date, but not what was special about it.” Reminding himself that as long as she was here, there was hope, he kept his voice non-confrontational. “Anything else like that come back to you?”

Remi’s gaze kept flicking down to his fingers, as he tapped them against the hip flask on the table. Something about the way she glanced at them stirred something in his memory, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

“Everything else I’ve remembered is pretty clear.” Remi pushed back her chair and stood up. “Well, mystery solved. I’d say it was nice running into you, but—”

“Wait. Please.” He grabbed her wrist as she began to turn, and she yanked her arm away as though his touch had burned her, a warning scowl on her face. “You promised to hear me out, and you haven’t.”

“You haven’t said anything worth hearing,” she told him, but sighed and resumed her seat. “What do you want?”

“Well, firstly, to tell you I’m glad you’re still alive.”

Despite her unwillingness to reveal it, he could tell that had touched her. Then her expression became steel again. “It’s none of your business anymore if I’m alive or not.”

He shook his head. “I don’t accept that. We’re connected, Remi, whether you remember it or not. I can’t just let you walk out of my life like this, not without knowing if I’m ever gonna see you again.”

She almost sounded like the Jane he knew when she leaned forward, telling him, “Kurt… I feel bad for you. I really do. If I were in your situation, I’d be out of my mind. But I don’t know what your endgame is, here. I won’t pretend to be someone I’m not anymore, and I can’t change who I am just to please you, even if I wanted to. Getting back some of my memories didn’t make Jane into me. Why would remembering Jane’s memories turn me back into her?”

It was something he’d heard hesitantly voiced by his team—the only ones who knew Jane wasn’t just ‘travelling’—at various times over the past year. He had to admit, they had a point. Short of some kind of miracle medical procedure to bring Jane back to the forefront of Remi’s brain, he was at a loss as to how he could ever get his wife back.

Remi was watching his hands again, and suddenly, he remembered a conversation he and Jane had had, not long after they’d admitted their feelings for each other.

_At the black site, and…after, I was so lonely. Nobody touched me unless they were beating me or manhandling me from place to place, and when I got out of there, I had no one to talk to, no one to be close to. When I came back to the FBI… I don’t know if you noticed, but I started fixating on people’s hands when I talked to them, especially yours. Maybe you thought I was just avoiding eye contact, but I… I almost didn’t feel real. I just needed someone to touch me. Not even in a sexual way; I just…needed to feel connected. Like it wasn’t just me on my own, drifting through life._

When he’d first heard about it, it had bothered him to think that she’d felt so profoundly alone, but it had become a non-issue during their relationship, where they’d rarely spent a day without hugs, kisses and affectionate touches. He’d forgotten all about it until now.

Remi must be feeling that same isolation, if she was exhibiting the behaviour Jane had described to him. It was very unlikely that she’d regained that particular memory of Jane’s.

Slowly, he reached across the table to where her right hand rested, and slid his palm over the hexagonal tattoo there. “Can we compromise?”

She pressed her lips together, staring down at his hand over hers, clearly conflicted. Tension radiated from her, but she didn’t pull away. “What did you have in mind?”

He’d have to tread carefully to avoid triggering her contempt for him until after she’d agreed. He had no doubt that they’d end up tearing open old emotional wounds, throwing blame and recriminations at each other. It was the way Remi was wired when it came to him—and he’d already had to will his irritation to calm a couple of times during this conversation. But if she made an agreement, she’d probably stick to it, no matter how much they pissed each other off.

After a pause to consider his phrasing, he said, “Let’s go get dinner, catch up on the last ten months. Then maybe take a walk, see if anything triggers memories for you. I’ll fill in any blanks and answer any questions you have about the past. In return—”

“You stop looking for me when I leave. Stop waiting for Jane to come back, go back to New York, or Colorado, and move on with your life.” Remi pulled her hand away, crossed her arms across her chest.

He kept his face impassive, but fear seized him at the thought of giving up on Jane. He’d sworn to her several times throughout her illness that he’d do anything he could to get them more time together, and even though Remi had been the recipient of those words, he’d addressed them to Jane. His wife. The woman he loved.

When he didn’t immediately respond, Remi shook her head, clearly impatient. “You wanted a compromise, Kurt. These are my terms. I spend tonight trying to remember, and tomorrow, you let me go. For good.”

Kurt took a second hit from his hip flask, knowing he was gambling his entire marriage on the next few hours. On the other hand, he’d gone ten months without even a hint of where she’d been. Remi must have thought he’d tracked her down, rather than their meeting being by accident, and that was why she was trying to get him to back off. If she didn’t agree to keep in contact after this, he’d likely never find her again, no matter what he tried.

An old saying flashed through his mind. _If you love something, set it free. If it returns, it’s yours. If not, it wasn’t meant to be._

“You have a deal.” He held out his hand.

Her jaw set, Remi returned the gesture, the pressure of her hand firm and impersonal as they shook on it. “Deal.”


	3. One Memory Regained, One Memory Ruined

_I can’t believe I actually ran into him here._

Remi buried the unexpected relief she felt at walking by Weller’s side, hiding it behind a scowl. She’d just been alone too long, that was all. Even a known foe started to look like a friend after too much isolation.

“Where are you staying?” Weller asked, as they left St. Mark’s Square.

Even his voice made her want to press her cheek against his shoulder and close her eyes. What the hell was wrong with her? This had to be some sort of weird shit from her lizard-Jane brain. She’d been away from him for ten months and been fine. Now, the second she was back within touching distance of him, she’d started going soft again.

She told him the name of her hotel, offering nothing else. If he thought she’d be participating in small talk just because he’d bargained his way back into her life for the rest of the day, he’d find out he was sorely mistaken.

Weller didn’t say anything for a few moments, which piqued her curiosity. She looked over to find a small smile at the corners of his lips. _What the hell is he so happy about?_

“What?” she asked, through gritted teeth.

 “That’s where Jane and I stayed when we first visited. I have a room there this time, too.”

“Coincidence,” Remi told him, rolling her eyes.

He gave a slight shrug. “Maybe. Or maybe you subconsciously chose that hotel because it struck a chord with your memories.”

After a few seconds of silence, she sensed he was about to say something else she wouldn’t like. She pre-empted him by going on the attack. “The hip flask is a new feature since I last saw you. You been hitting the bottle like your dad?”

Kurt sighed, and though he didn’t outwardly react much, she sensed she’d struck a nerve. “Actually, no. Tonight was meant to be a one-off. I was gonna get a little drunk, walk around, remember what I’ve lost—”

“Cry a little?” Remi added.

Weller looked as though he was biting his tongue. _Hope it hurts._

“Then,” he continued after a moment, “I was gonna fly back to New York and focus on the job for a while. You remember that, right? Saving lives, stopping corruption? You used to enjoy it.”

“You know that was me pretending to be Jane.”

“No. That was you. You found meaning in that work. You enjoyed it.”

He was right, and Remi hated that. Working with the FBI had felt like her Orion special ops missions—back before she’d realised she and her team were nothing but highly trained, deadly pawns serving the whims of a corrupt government.

The FBI was no different. Sure, she’d enjoyed it for a while. But the bloom would have fallen off that rose eventually, just like what had happened with Orion. She’d have turned around one day and realised she was sowing destruction when she’d thought she was making things better. It was just as well that the ZIP poisoning had put a stop to things when it had, before she’d gotten too invested.

_But if the NYO really is as corrupt as the military, Kurt would have realised by now. His whole life has been for the Bureau. He wouldn’t stand for it. He’d walk away before he’d do the kind of thing Mayfair did._

“Remi? Where did you just go?” Weller asked softly.

His concern made her want to cry. Instead, she changed the subject. “Where are _we_ supposed to be going? I’m assuming it’s someplace you and Jane ate?”

“Not far now.”

Weller stopped on a bridge that crossed one of the smaller canals between two areas. Remi got two steps ahead before she realised he was lagging behind. “What are you doing?”

“Enjoying the atmosphere. You should try it. Relax for a second.”

Remi gritted her teeth and joined him as he leaned on the stone wall that ran along the edge of the bridge. As she gazed at a speedboat passing underneath, a flicker of a memory hit—another time, and another boat. Weller clinging to the front of it, trying to haul himself from the water onto the craft.  The driver had a close-cropped beard and was wearing a cap and sunglasses, obviously having failed to stay incognito. There was one person he could never fool—his sister.

“Roman?” Remi breathed the word rather than spoke it, staring at the spot where the speedboat had been.

Weller was watching her, waiting for her to ask. She almost decided not to, just to spite him—but what if she never fully regained this memory, never knew the context?

“Roman was here with you and Jane?” she said, as casually as she could.

Kurt inclined his head. “Not _with_ us, exactly. But he was the reason we were here that time. You don’t remember that? You must have read the Sandstorm file, right? While I was still in the coma?”

“Yeah. But by the time I got to this part, I’d already found out everyone was dead or imprisoned except for Roman. I was having a little difficulty processing.” She paused. “I skimmed bits, and maybe the poisoning was affecting my ability to store information. I don’t know.”

Weller said nothing, just stood upright again and continued in the direction they’d been heading. Remi stifled an exasperated noise and walked quickly to catch up. “What happened here, Kurt? With Roman? Why didn’t he just crash the boat into the side of the canal and scrape you off before you could climb up the side?”

He kept walking.

Her fingers itched with the urge to punch him. “Do you want to take a dive into the canal? You made me stick around tonight so I could remember things. You’re sabotaging your own cause by withholding information.”

“The restaurant is right there.” Weller gestured across the square at a cosily lit little eating establishment. “I’ll tell you once we’ve ordered our food.”

Remi stared at the restaurant through the deepening twilight. _Oh, fuck, no._ “I said I’d go to dinner. I didn’t say romance, candles and eating the same strand of fucking spaghetti like in _Lady and the Tramp._ ”

Weller raised an eyebrow. “Would it really be that bad? You’ve kissed me before.”

A jolt of stunned arousal ran through her, followed swiftly by mortification that she covered with anger. _Oh, you just had to bring that up, didn’t you? Fine. “_ Yes, Kurt, I kissed you. Then I made the huge mistake of fucking you before I left you in my dust. Now that we’ve dredged up past mistakes, let’s just move on.”

Kurt stared at her like it was the last thing he’d expected her to blurt out, and belatedly she remembered all the times she’d kissed him while she’d been pretending to be Jane. It had been an effective way to derail his focus and diffuse his suspicions, and she’d done it often. He must have been thinking of those relatively chaste duty kisses.

Remi had overreacted to his statement, her mind fixated on the day she’d kissed him as herself, with no pretences or masks between them. Just pure, raw need. And kisses had only been part of what they’d done.

Now he knew her thoughts about kissing him fast-tracked straight to the gutter. She wanted desperately to leave, but she’d already agreed to spend the rest of the evening with him, and he was holding information about Roman over her head. _Great work, Briggs._

After a moment that felt like an eternity, he folded his arms and said, “You agreed to do this. You knew we’d be going places we went back then. If you want me to tell you about Roman…”

Remi gave him a big, fake Jane-Doe smile, adding her own murderous edge to it as she muttered, “Let’s just get this done.”

* * *

As Remi stalked past him into the tiny restaurant, Kurt took a split-second to collect his thoughts. He’d expected Remi to be pissed at him about the restaurant—in part because she was adamant that she wasn’t even a tiny bit Jane, but also because of the way they’d last collided, which had been the opposite of romantic.

He hadn’t anticipated that she’d directly address their sexual encounter, but maybe he should have seen it coming. She’d allowed herself to be cornered for the evening—no doubt her logic was along the lines of the ends justifying the means—but she seemed to have made it her mission to make him uncomfortable tonight, like a trapped animal snarling and clawing in its own defence.

He turned over that thought as he followed her inside. Remi knew he would never put her in physical danger, and she also knew he wouldn’t impede her freedom in any way that might have consequences for Jane—unless her freedom would result in worse consequences. Even so, she was acting as though she had to defend herself. What was it about him that she found threatening?

He’d thought a lot about Remi and her motivations since she’d left. That question had few possible answers, and he’d almost decided she must be worried that her returning memories would result in Jane resurfacing. Then he noticed just how tense she was under the friendly attitude she was striving for, and the dread in her eyes when she glanced at him.

_Emotional intimacy. She’s actually afraid of it._

As they were shown to one of many small tables set for two, the missing piece dropped into place. All this time, he’d been wondering what he’d done to incur Remi’s hatred, besides being the one Jane had fallen for. He’d wondered if Shepherd had cultivated that hatred, by accident or by design, over long years of watching him and training her adopted children.

Now he realised that Remi wasn’t just angry—she was scared. He’d seen Jane angry, and though it was a strong, genuine emotion that sometimes took time to work through, she’d stayed detached enough from it to deal with it through it with logic, perspective and fairness.

Remi was different. She embraced anger, personified it, didn’t care whether it was justified or not, because without it she was vulnerable. She was terrified of anyone getting close to her, and she used attack as her primary defence to stop people from sensing her fear or her perceived weaknesses. From the way Jane had talked about the way Remi had treated Roman, Kurt was guessing that fear even applied to the people she trusted and loved.

The waiter assigned to their table came over, and Kurt vaguely remembered the guy from his first visit here, with Jane. Remi didn’t recall, but the waiter clearly remembered her, greeting them both in English before addressing Remi specifically in Italian. They were speaking so fast and fluently that he had no chance of understanding it, so he watched Remi, who was pulling an apologetic face and gesturing to her head as she spoke.

Faced with someone she had no recollection of meeting before, she’d been able to re-establish her equilibrium and pull on her Jane persona—the one he would have seen through much more quickly if not for his own injury and his allowances for Jane’s grief over Roman’s death. Even though he knew it was an act, it sent a pang of loss through him. Jane had a softness and warmth Remi lacked, but Remi was almost note-perfect in faking it.

The waiter returned to English for Kurt’s benefit, sighing. “Head injuries can be nasty. She may not remember me, but I remember the two of you. Newly engaged, wasn’t it? Are you married yet?”

Kurt knew the guy meant well, but the answer was so complicated and painful, he didn’t know how to answer. A simple truth seemed easiest. “Nearly three years now.”

“Ah, yes, I see the rings.”

 _Rings, plural?_ Kurt’s gaze shot to Remi’s hand on her menu, and it took all of his willpower to drag his stare away from the wedding ring still sitting on her finger. _She’s still wearing her ring. Why would she do that, if she didn’t even know I’d be here? Is she playing a longer game here? Or is she—?_

“Well, time flies. Who knows, next time you come here, I might be married too!” The waiter, oblivious to Kurt’s surprise and Remi’s discomfort, produced a lighter and lit the three small candles in the brass gondola centrepiece on the table. “What can I get you to drink?”

Before Kurt could say anything, Remi launched into Italian again, asking a question he could vaguely understand was about wine, then gesturing to Kurt with a mildly regretful smile. The look the waiter gave Kurt gave him the feeling the translation would give him the urge to leave the restaurant on his own.

After the waiter made a suggestion Remi agreed to, he departed, leaving them to stare at each other across the table.

“What lies did you tell him, darling?” Kurt asked blandly.

Around them, other couples were enjoying their meals and each other’s company, and he was conscious of the fact that these people were making their own treasured memories, similar to the ones he and Jane had shared here. He didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere for them, no matter how ugly the conversation with Remi got.

Remi smiled at him over her menu. “I mentioned that we’d like a wine with a low alcohol content, dear, since if you get too wasted you have performance problems in the bedroom.”

Kurt closed his eyes and silently counted to five, struggling not to retort. There were so many cheap shots he could take at Remi, but riling her up would only make her claws come out farther, and she might even decide to just get up and leave. He drew on the newfound knowledge that her antagonistic behaviour masked fear, and rose above the desire to wound her with his words, at least for now. She’d already lit his fuse, but it was long, and burning slowly.

He’d be able to be civil to her for a while yet. Even longer, if doing so rattled her.

“Low alcohol is a good idea. You’ll probably remember more with a clear head. Are you still eating vegan?”

She shook her head. “That was her thing, not mine.”

“Make an exception tonight, in case it triggers anything. Please.”

Remi frowned. “Was Jane even vegan when you first came here? Patterson said she started it in Kathmandu.”

“Not when we ate here. But she was vegan by the time of that memory you just had.” Kurt left it at that. She’d do what she wanted, and she had no reason to adhere to his request beyond selfish ones.

The waiter returned with their wine. While Kurt heroically resisted the urge to correct the misconception Remi had given the guy, Remi again switched to Italian, plucking the menu out of her husband’s hands and handing it to the waiter as she spoke.

When they were alone again, Kurt sighed. “You ordered for me?”

Remi gave him an angelic smile. “You said you wanted to eat vegan this time, so I took care of it.”

His fuse was a little shorter now. She was playing this as manipulatively as she could, trying to make him lose his cool. She could probably guess that this was tainting his memories of when he’d visited with Jane. If she wanted to fight dirty, he’d match her.

He reached for her left hand across the table, leaned forward and kissed her wedding ring. “Nice to see you’re still wearing it. I guess it’s too much to hope that you’ve been keeping to the ‘forsaking all others’ part of your vows, though?”

Remi’s face didn’t change, but her expression froze in place and her shoulders rose just a little higher. As soon as she could pull her hand back without causing a scene, she tucked it under the table. “It’s surprising how many guys will back off once they think you’re some other man’s property. I should have started wearing a wedding ring right after high school.”

He wondered if that were really the reason, or if sentiment had come into play. Or had she only put it on because she’d known she’d run into him? He had too many questions, and she wouldn’t give him straight answers if he asked.

Remi let the barest edge of steel into her voice. “Tell me about Roman.”

“Let’s make another bargain. You ask a question; I’ll answer honestly. Then I get to ask a question, and you have to do the same. An answer for an answer, as many times as we have questions. Does that work for you?”

She fidgeted almost imperceptibly, then said, “Fine. I want my answer first. What happened in this city between Roman and you two?”

It took Kurt almost until their food arrived to relate how they’d ended up in Venice a second time. The clue behind Jane’s ear referring to the first day of their engagement. The bell tower. The cell phone and Roman’s plan to get the bounty off Jane’s head. The chase through the city, on foot and by speedboat, until Roman had ditched Kurt in the open water and made his escape, leaving Jane to rescue Kurt in a second boat.

The whole time, Remi’s focus on him was absolute. She drank in every word of knowledge about her brother almost hungrily, though she tried not to look desperate for the information. Despite his irritation with and general antipathy for Remi, Kurt couldn’t help but feel for her. Just as Jane had sought to understand her fragmented memories, Remi was also piecing together the out of context images in her mind, although it was Jane’s interactions with Roman she was trying to recall.

Kurt stopped before getting to the part where he and Jane had enacted Roman’s scheme to collect the bounty for her supposedly dead body. If she wanted to know how the story ended, she’d have to ask for it.

“My turn. What have you remembered of Jane’s life since you left the States? Really remembered, not just heard about from outside sources.”

Before Remi could reply, the waiter brought their food. For the first time since they’d entered the restaurant, Kurt felt his optimism return as he gazed down at a large plate of vegan lasagne.


End file.
